Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Bedtime Story Time.

Story time has become an important part of our children's life, especially at night. At any given time, we have between 30-50 books out from the library and we read as many as half that number in a single day. Although the kids love stories, whether we're reading to them or they're paging through the books themselves, they quickly memorize portions of the books and they know the plots by heart.

Seth likes to shake things up every so often. He'll leave the books in the shelves, grab the chalkboard, and come up with a story on the fly, often involving the kids to shape the characters and the plot. The kids seem to enjoy this change from their usual evening routine; perhaps a bit too much. In fact, the kids are so entertained, that the only time I see the same look on our kids' faces are when they are watching TV. As Seth created his stories, the kids sat quietly with intense looks on their faces.

So tonight, as the collection of library books sat next to the hundred or so of our own books, Seth created a story of his own. Tonight's story was about Julia and I taking David to his school in a rocket ship.

But it doesn't bring us to his school. Instead it heads to Saturn to take him to a new school. That is, until David pressed the wrong button!

The ship started spinning out of control, crashing into the moon. Julia pressed another button and saved the day, sending the ship back home where it landed on the roof of our home.

The story actually included a lot more details, getting the kids involved throughout. Seth would draw buttons that the kids could press which changed the story in one way or another or changing the behavior of the spaceship.

Another story involved the kids visiting the zoo with the objective of seeing a couple of animals. Seth drew arrows on the board and let the kids choose the direction they wanted to take which took them to different animals that they selected from a deck of cards with pictures of animals on them. Some of the animals would communicate while others would give directions to get to other animals.

Neither kid wanted the stories to end and begged for them to continue, even when it was an hour past their intended bedtime.